


Flicker and Forward

by ObnoxiousMilletGuardian



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Ignoct Week, Ignoct Week 2018, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2019-05-19 21:18:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14881370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObnoxiousMilletGuardian/pseuds/ObnoxiousMilletGuardian
Summary: It's Noctis's final night. Time is of the essence, it seems.For the Ignoct Writing Weekend, using Friday's prompts: Angst, Campsite, Watch/Clock.





	Flicker and Forward

**Author's Note:**

> So... I thought I’d try the Ignoct Writing Weekend. I’ve gone for Friday’s set. I feel like I should clarify that I’m very new to this fandom/game (I only finished it like… two months ago), and also I haven’t written a darn thing in about three years so I’m rusty as shit. Please forgive me.
> 
> Prompts chosen: Angst, Campsite, Watch/Clock  
> (I couldn’t stick to the word count, I’m sorry D:)

01:24

 

He’s hypersensitive. Perhaps it’s a side effect of the crystal, heighted observations along with the powers. Maybe it’s a little more frighteningly simple than that. Knowing exactly when and how you shall willingly hand yourself to death’s embrace has quite the way of shaking up how the world appears. Throwing pitch to loud whispers and turning the softer shades into loud and stinging red and yellows. Touch rings under his unworn fingers, new the jarring. Even the clothes he wears irritate and itch the skin.

Noctis is struggling to take it all in at once. He’s been habitually pinching at the skin on the back of his hand, but there’s no more sleeping. Awake now. Lucid to a world around him that is dry and brittle, pressing with shadows all around that strain his eyes against the memory of sleeping. Pathetic to say, but he cannot wrap his head around how _dark_ it is in the World of Ruin. The artificial light of the camp is a single dew drop, and the rest of landscape is pure pitch.

 

01:27

 

The neon green numbers burn at his attention, glaring at him as he sits in a chair at the fire. He spotted the small digital clock sitting on top of the food box by the tent earlier. An odd little thing, a battered plastic box with a face glowing resolute against the flickering flames and waning torches. Gladio had set an alarm on it ten minute ago, before heading into the tent to sleep before his turn to watch to Prompto. He said nothing, thinking only to give a goodnight to his King with a waggle of his fingers and a cheesy grin. Prompto had followed him, embarrassed, muttering something about wishing the left behind a ‘good’ night.

(“ _Tactful_ ,” Noctis heard the amused mutter from the figure leaning against the table as the tent zipped back up, “ever so tactful.”)

 

01:28

 

The clock bothers Noctis. Pricking at his anxiety when he’s strung tight enough. He tries to ignore it, focus on something- anything- other than the time. He looks around the camp, the same old beloved equipment and chairs. Now faded and dusty from the wait- no, he can’t think about the marks and rust. Noctis then tries to fixate on the fire in front of him. Easy, without thoughts. The flames crinkle and crack upon the charcoaled wood, curling in swirls from umber to ash. It’s almost enough to send his brain to mindlessness. _Almost._ Because it’s ruined by the kettle he spots delicately suspended over it, hanging by a hook mechanism. It ticks with the sound of water boiling, and that sound mixes and fades with the busy-patter sounds of clinking and rustling by the table. The table that Noctis has tried to avoid looking at most of all, where there are plates being cleaned, put away, and items sorted into their proper places. There’s also a hot drink being made, without being asked to, and Noctis regrets stealing a glance at the figure beyond the fire, feeling the tidal wave of anxiety surging forward to suffocate. He tears his eyes away, and finds that bastard clock again.

 

01:30

 

He closes his eyes, hating himself for doing it because gods be damned, the world is going to dissolve from him soon enough and he should instead be taking in everything his over-flared senses devour. Hell, he should be just looking at the man who’s by the table, cleaning up after dinner. Noctis should be looking and looking at him, committing every single part of him to every empty space left in his mind and even drawing over the old remembrances. Looking at hands moving with inherent grace, using muscle memory to designate the bag or box for the cutlery and plates. Where leftovers are packed up with care with a slight, wonderful frown at the ties and zips. 

But Noctis can’t look at him, because he’s already noticed how the figure by the table goes about his chores with his head cocked. Listening out, _waiting_. Waiting for footsteps, a voice, a call, for his King to talk to him- approach him. Do something-

Noctis sucks in a loud breath, eyelids squeezing tighter. He can’t open his eyes because of the stupid clock. He can’t speak over the sound of his own racing heartbeat, his panicked thoughts zipping back and forth. The total terror and worry- no, this isn’t about him dying tomorrow. He doesn’t care. But it’s about the _everything else._ It’s about being aware of every breath he’s taking and knowing that he’s wasting it, of the passing seconds of silence that he knows he should be filling. Above all else, it’s the absolute crushing knowledge of how this will be the only real time Noctis will have left with _him_ alone in particular, and instead of seizing it with both hands, Noctis has balled his into frightened fists with eyes shut like a child who is trying to believe that there are no nightmares and shadows lurking in a dark corner.

Soft footsteps approach him at last, the true light he’s sought in his life. There’s a cautious hand in his hair, rousing him, somehow aware as always that the King has snapped himself off from the current world.

“Here.”

Noctis opens his eyes.

 

01:36

 

He uses two hands to take the hot mug from Ignis, who has turned a silhouette against the fire. Noctis can only see pieces of him, like a puzzle of a remembered face. The silver line of frames, the catch of glitter around the neck, a darkened dip over the left eye. Ignis has never looked more beautiful to Noctis, it pains him at his core, an ache building deep within the chest, nestled in the bones of his ribs. Noctis woke up on Angelguard in full acceptance of his fate but it took a split second to look at his retainer barely two hours later and ten years of resolve almost came crashing all around.

He sips at the drink and smiles. It’s hot chocolate- proper hot chocolate. His favourite.

“Yikes. No coffee at all.” Noctis hears his own voice, alien and awkward, thin from being used so little. “Things are really that bad, huh?”

Ignis scowls, turning away from him to go back to the table. “Don’t.”

“Oh, oops. Should’ve realised you’re still in mourning for Ebony. 

Noctis bites his lip immediately after, but the words are already out. What is he _doing_? Joking in bad taste? Is it bad taste? Because every word and turn of phrase is so loaded now, within the darkness of this world. Not to mention, in where Noctis’ hands had brushed against Ignis’ warm fingers, that he palpably felt beneath that familiar skin how Ignis too was on a thin edge. How the nerves thrummed and fired, disintegrating like his own. The terror lingered, pulling a thread between them, thickening in Noctis’s brain.

But Ignis is back. Smiling. Coming to sit by him with a matching mug full of sugary chocolatey goodness. And it _is_ good. Whatever dubious things Ignis has done in order to acquire what is clearly a black market good that they now both hold, Noctis thinks that honestly, it was worth it. They sit in a silence that won’t name itself. They sip at mugs.

 

01:38

 

Shit. He shouldn’t have looked over there.

Noctis pulls up his chair so it’s as close as he can get to Ignis’s. Although once he’s done that, he’s not sure what he wants to do next. No, he’s lying. He sees Ignis’s hand draped over the chair arm, tantalisingly close to him, and he wants to hold it. He wants to do much more than just hold Ignis’s hand. But the terror, the fretting, the _everything else_ , means he can’t. It’s a purgatory of knowns and unknowns. Torn with the knowledge of what has passed, and what will happen. Scattered to the winds by the not knowing of what has gone on in the past decade without him, and more dissonantly, of not knowing what to do now. Of how not to squander this moment.

How to take this blessing and curse that is Ignis in this moment and be together, before they are brutally ripped apart for good.

 

01:39

 

 _Fuck_.

Noctis is the King of Lucis, he is going to restore the dawn. He is going to right the wrongs committed from centuries past. He has also taken the ones he loves right to the ridge of hell and seen them tumble right over without question. Gods, he should be better than this, stronger than this. Not fretting like a lost toddler, fumbling over what to do, what to _say_ , as the seconds and minutes bundle together and spindle through the last hours.

 

01:40

 

“Don’t want to sound stupid but uh… how does it work?”

Ignis turns to him, “How does what work?”

Holy hell, Noctis really wants to hit himself. “The thingy- the clock on the box over there.”

“The… the clock?”

“Yeah. How is it working? I mean, it’s not like it’s solar powered.”

Ignis is silent, caught off-guard and confised by the questioning. Noctis can’t blame him, he’s caught off guard by his own stupid self-right at the moment.

“Oh.” Ignis catches on again a split second later, talking more to himself than to Noctis, “The alarm clock.”

If Ignis wants to ask ‘ _Noct, what the actual hell…?’_ then Noctis has an answer. He’s asking because there is a part of him that does want to know. Not about stupid clocks. But the ten years. About the little nuances of those ten years that so far he’s only caught in half-snatches of breath whispering around. The words of a terrible decade filtering through the air, inhaled by the people and the places where they have been allowed to survive.

Ignis, as always, is obliging. Because he’s Ignis.

“Well, it works by the grace of salvaging and refilling every battery we can get our hands on.” A smirk appears, “We were lucky that while we were losing our heads, the Marshall remembered to prioritise track of time. It proved useful in adjusting to the total lack of daylight.”

 

01:41

 

There’s so many hidden stories within that explanation alone, but Noctis knows it’s not his place to ask. “Is keeping the time really that important?”

Ignis considers the question, “It’s allowed for some semblance of an old normality. A comfort, if you will. It also ensures a form of order. I do remember how people would have this odd instance of forgetting to go to bed when the darkness began.”

“An experience you know better than anyone, Iggy.”

“More a terrible habit, to be fair.”

Demon silence spreads again, and Noctis almost wants to burst out of his skin. Ignis sips at his mug and Noctis can see his foot swaying back and forth. A habit he didn’t want to see from him, something he wanted to avoid. Instead, he asked a question about the clock. That’s it. That’s all Noctis has done so far with his precious time.

 

01:42

 

“Can we… put it somewhere else?”

“What- the clock?” 

“I mean, sounds dumb to ask- but I don’t…”

There’s a pause. 

“Of course, Noct.” Ignis puts his mug down and gets to his feet. “Where…?”

Noctis speaks so fast, the words almost blur together, “It’s on the box by the tent.”

As Ignis goes to pick the clock up and ultimately hide it away, Noctis can’t help himself. His fingers tighten on his cooling mug. Any tighter and he’ll dent the metal. Panic really is threatening to overwhelm him now, because he can’t get it out of his head. For fuck’s sake- _for fuck’s sake he’s wasting his time- their time_. He’s not using it well enough, good enough. He’s not being _enough_ for Ignis when this is so so important.

His chest aches, breath coming in short bursts. Noctis has held on to all of this control since he woke up, built a damn a peaceful acceptance against the tide and swell of dread. Because he had accepted his fate. He had, he really had. And he is ready, only…

Only he’s not, really. He’s not every time he’s looked at Ignis.

And this is what hurts. This is what’s making his heart race, the sweat pooling at his neck. Who is ready for death, really? Who’s ready to leave the ones they love behind, to a place where they can’t follow? Who’s had to look at Ignis Scientia as Noctis has done, as he has to right now, and know that in a few hours, he will not see that loving face again? He wants to shut his eyes again, but that wouldn’t be fair. It wouldn’t be fair to the other man who is in his hell too, and is trying to weather the waves as resolutely as he can. Noctis hears Ignis pause behind him, and tries to slow his wheezing, stop his hands from trembling. He didn’t want to be like this in front of him.

Ignis comes around to him directly, and wordlessly takes Noctis’s mug from his grip, setting it on the ground. And then he kneels in front of him, fingers wrapping around Noctis’s own, nestling in his lap. There’s an echo of their moment away from the campfire a few hours ago, but there is something different here. Something rather raw, unfettered. Ignis tilts his head up to his King.

“Noct…” ' _What’s wrong?'_ Would be the natural question that would have followed ten years ago, but now they both know there’s plenty wrong. Ignis’s fingers itch and quiver with their own silent agonising, his cheeks pale with their own rushing thoughts. Noctis’s holds on to Ignis’s hands for dear life, gods, he’s missed the feel of those fingers on his skin. Right now, Ignis’s touch has done more in this moment to make Noctis feel like an actual human walking along this earth.

“Noct?” Ignis presses again, returning the tight hold. Urging Noctis to speak, no matter the weight of the words. If only Noctis had that ability, like he wishes he had the power to survive his destiny, to be with Ignis and keep these memories and the future for the both of them. To right now show everything he hasn’t been able to say in the past, to bring back to the surface what they’d buried deep between them at Althissa.

Noctis starts, because he has to try and start somewhere _._

“With all this time I’ve had to myself to just think,” he sucks in another breath, throat parched all of a sudden, “I thought I’d know what to do now.”

If Ignis is confused, he doesn’t show it. Allowing Noctis to talk, keeping that iron grip.

“Like…” Noctis continues, “I knew what to do in the crystal, and I know what I need to do at Insomnia. But right now, with these hours that I have…”

Noctis can see every part of Ignis’s face, every detail.

“I just… I don’t _know…_ ”

Noctis wishes he could shut up. Reign it in. Ha ha. _Reign._ He’s been a King for nigh on ten years and really, he doesn’t know the first thing about it. He’s failing to barely express his jumbled thoughts correctly to one of the most important persons in his life. He can’t even grab the, by the tips of his fingers and put them in a row.

“I’m not doing this right, Ignis. And I wanted to get this right more than anything…”

“What is ‘this’, Noct?”

The sudden question kicks out the truth.

“This night. This time.” Noctis can always tell Ignis everything. No matter how small, how stupid it sounds. The second he stops doing that, he might as well die there and then. “You.” 

Noctis hears the hitch in Ignis’s throat, rather than see the jerk in the shoulders, and it stabs deep. He didn’t want to cause this pain, not tonight. But the pain is everywhere, unavoidable like tomorrow. A moment passes, and Ignis too, seems to accept this, letting go of Noctis’s hand to slide the glasses off of his face, tucking them away. Showing Noctis all of him.

“There has never been anything you’ve needed to get ‘right’ when it comes to me. I thought you knew that.”

“I did- do, but Iggy… it’s different now.”

“That it is.” A calm composure of tone turns thick, going to a near whisper. “If only I could have changed it.” 

Noctis cheeks grow hot, and tears push at him again. But he’s sick of crying, and he’s sure Ignis is too. Doubly sure as Ignis catches himself for a moment and even shakes his head to himself. A gesture so standard, so completely _normal_ that Noctis is smiling to himself about it, rubbing an unconscious thumb across Ignis’s palm.

“There’s nothing you have to do here. Nothing at all.” Ignis’s voice returns strong, tender, leaning forward. “To be here with you is all I’ve waited for these past ten years, and I… I feel blessed to have been given it at all.” 

There Ignis speaks the words for both of them, laying the fears and wants as bare, open wounds. And Noctis, now Noctis wants to be the soothing balm. He cups Ignis’s face with both of his hands, smoothing a cheek with his left thumb. Ignis holds Noctis by the wrists, a small hum escaping at the sudden change in touch, but he grips as hard as he did before. The affirmation runs a frisson through the both of them. Just take it. Take the damn time that’s been given, and run. 

The kiss is feather light, tentative on Noctis’s part. Searching for memories of a before with care, just in case nothing forms. But of course, everything rushes back. The love, the pressure, hot prickles of secrets and excitement. Ignis’s fingers lace through Noctis’s hair, clawing deep, anchoring tight to not let go. Noctis feels that scar on Ignis’s lips stretch as they push together. Noctis’s feeling the pull, and relents. Sliding off of his seat because he needs to be closer, one arm coming free just to shove the chair back further behind him so they have more space. So Noctis can settle comfortably in Ignis’s lap with his legs wrapped around his waist.

“I’ve missed you.” Ignis whispers when they break apart, still fumbling, desperate and aching to remember how they used to form together. Noctis gently smooths a stray lock of Ignis’s fringe, tucking it to the side. Curling a finger under Ignis’s chin to grab another stolen kiss, taking in the confession and answering with a call of love that lied and said that no, they had all the time in the world.

 

From inside the box by the tent, the clock glowered 01:59.


End file.
